My Blog List

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Following yesterday’s murder of an 86
year old Roman Catholic priest in his church in Rouen in northern France, a
reminder that most victims of ISIS terrorists are Muslims.

More than 40 people have been
killed by a massive suicide truck bomb in the Kurdish-controlled city of
Qamishli in north-east Syria near the border with Turkey. ISIS said it was
behind the attack which happened near a security headquarters. The blast
appears to have caused a gas tank to explode, adding to the destruction.

Kurds have been perhaps the most
resolute opponents of ISIS, in spite of also finding themselves under attack
from Turkey’s increasingly autocratic president, Recep Erdogan. As a result
they have often been the victims of bombings by the Islamist terrorists.

Earlier this month, an ISIS suicide
bomber on a motorbike killed 16 people among a crowd which had gathered to celebrate the end of
Ramadan in the Kurdish-majority city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria.

Thursday, 21 July 2016

This is how the publisher, Reaktion Books, describes my new book:-Storms affect our lives in many remarkable and dangerous ways. Gales, hurricanes, cyclones, blizzards, tornados, hail and sand and dust storms regularly demonstrate the awesome power of nature that all of us experience in some form. But what causes them? What role have they played in our history, religion and the arts? And will climate change make them even more destructive?

This strikingly illustrated book takes an in-depth and unique look at the nature of storms and their impact on our lives. It shows how storms have changed the course of history, playing a decisive role in major battles and momentous revolutions from Roman times to the modern day. It describes the deadliest storms in history, such as the Bangladesh cyclone of 1970 that killed perhaps a million people, and explains how humans have tried to control storms through religion, superstition and science. Despite their potent ability to cause destruction, storms also benefit humanity. Stormdescribes the major role they have played in the arts, from Shakespeare’s plays to novels such as Robinson Crusoe and famous works of art by Rembrandt, Constable, Monet, Munch and Turner. It describes how storms even out global temperatures, providing rain and clearing out old trees to make way for new, and considers what will happen to storms in the future. Fully illustrated and brilliantly written, Storm is the first book to cover all aspects of these natural phenomena.http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780236612

Wednesday, 20 July 2016

The Brexiters told us that if we voted to leave the EU, we would 'take control.' Apparently not.With less than a month gone since the referendum, we have already had a prime minister that no one voted for imposed on us . So are the Brexiters demanding a general election? Apparently not.The other thing we heard a lot about from the Leave campaign was that the UK parliament must be sovereign. So is it going to get a say on when our unelected prime minister gives notice to quit the EU under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty? Not if the Brexiters get their way.The minister in charge of Brexit, David Davis, appears determined to make sure Parliament has no control, but a number of British citizens are mounting legal challenges. Predictably they have been subjected to threats and racist abuse.

Friday, 15 July 2016

During the referendum campaign, UKIP’s Nigel Farage led a
few fishing boats up the Thames to protest against the EU’s Common Fisheries
Policy while another leading Brexiter, ‘Mike the knife’ Gove blamed it for the
destruction of his father’s business. Leave campaigners told fishermen that once
we left Europe, foreigners could be excluded from British waters, and all their
troubles would be over.

Sadly, it was just another broken Brexit promise. The
National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations has warned that because the UK
is so close to Europe, it will not be possible to shut out other nations in the
way that Iceland, for example, has done.

Instead we will have to negotiate with our neighbours – a
process that will almost certainly take years, with no guarantee that quotas
will end up being any more generous than they are now, especially as they will
still have to be tight enough to stop the suicidal overfishing the CFP was
designed to prevent.

The only certain outcome of leaving the EU will be that
fishermen will lose the subsidies they currently get from Europe.

As with so many
things that were blamed on the EU, much of the discontent stirred up by the CFP
was actually the result of a decision by the UK government - to allocate
two-thirds of our quotas to just three big companies, freezing out many smaller
fishermen.

Wednesday, 13 July 2016

According to Enoch Powell, 'all political careers end in failure'. But few can have burned up quite so spectacularly as that of David Cameron.He spent months telling us it would be a disaster if we left the EU, and yet because of his foolishly constructed referendum, which imposed no minimum threshold for Brexit, on the say-so of not much more than a third of the electorate, we are now consigned to suffer the damage he predicted.As for his flagship policy - elimination of the budget deficit - he abandoned that completely. Originally he promised to balance the books by 2015, then by 2020, and much pain and austerity was inflicted on the British people to achieve this objective. Now there is no plan for getting rid of the deficit, just as there is no plan for what to do when we leave Europe.In Peer Gynt, as the hero's life nears its end, he is confronted by a button-moulder who proposes melting him down to see if anything of value remains. When David Cameron's time at No 10 is melted down, what will we find? He legalised same-sex marriage. And that is about it.We British often get sentimental about prime ministers who are coming to the end of their careers, however unpopular they may have been. But David Cameron's great failing was that he put the interests of the Conservative Party before the interests of his country. And for that history will judge him harshly, and rightly so.He leaves office a leading contender, against some formidable competition, for the title of Britain's worst-ever prime minister.

About Me

Author of 'Storm: Nature and Culture', 'Flood: Nature and Culture','Britain's 20 Worst Military Disasters','London's Disasters','The Disastrous History of London' ('Capital Disasters' in hardback), 'A Disastrous History of Britain', 'A Disastrous History of the World', 'Disaster! A History of Earthquakes, Floods, Plagues and Other Catastrophes', and 'Shutdown. Anatomy of a Shipyard Closure.' Producer/director of more
than 40 tv documentaries. Former radio producer. Freelance writer for publications such as the Guardian, Independent, Daily Express, Observer, New Statatesman. Freelance communications consultant and adviser. http://www.disasterhistorian.com/